Just For Now
by wolfiecaw
Summary: Shouto, now an adult, reflects on his past and even learns a little something.


Shouto Todoroki, a 22 year old pro hero named Prince Picante, opens his eyes slowly. Rising from his bed, he looks outside the window beside him. The whole landscape is covered with a thick layer of beautiful, crispy white snow. Shouto smiles. _I should go outside and enjoy this_ , he thinks to himself. Shouto jumps out of his bed, digs through his clothes drawers, and changes into a soft red ugly sweater and thick black snow pants. Dashing into the living room, he finds his snow boots and excitedly ties them onto his feet. He picks up white leather gloves and a blue beanie from his dining table and quickly puts those on as well. As he exits his apartment, he takes a heavy purple jacket from his coat rack and throws it on. Locking his apartment door, he runs down the stairs and outside. The cold air hits him, like a soft blanket. His quirk does utilize ice, after all– the cold is his home. Shouto yells in the air, seeing his breath spiral around. It felt so good to yell. He wanted to do it some more. But of course, it'd be weird to yell and plop in snow in front of an apartment complex, so Shouto set out for the park.

Biking in the snow is a difficult task. Shouto melts the snow with his quirk so that the path is clear for him to bike on. He whistles all the way. When he gets to the entrance of the park, Shouto practically jumps off of his bike. He locks it to a post and runs deep into the park. He passes by countless trees that are layered in snow, and even a frozen lake. Shouto stops when he gets to the lake's edge, smiling. He jumps right onto the lake, and manages to use his quirk to slide all about. He's not the best ice skater, so he just wobbles around on the ice, but it's still fun. Shouto falls a few times, but he laughs a big hearty laugh rather than whine.

After he tires himself out, he skates to the lake edge and pulls himself back onto land. Shouto continues to walk even deeper into the park, into a part not marked by a trail. Eventually, he comes to a weird open field in the middle of the park. There's a bench and light post, but no path. Shouto smiles. _This must be a fun park secret,_ he figures. He throws himself into a state of relaxation, as if he were meditating while standing up. He concentrates so hard that he throws himself into the past. Memories of high school flood Shouto's brain. Previous winters come to mind.

During the winter of his second year at U. A. he had dated Izuku. They had come to a park similar to this in a different town and sipped warm tea and punched trees. It had been a fun time. Shouto realizes that after they got bored of punching trees, Izuku had kissed him— that was his first kiss. Shouto smiles and blushed while remembering Izuku's awkward face and shaky hands. He even giggles a bit at the thought.

During the winter of his third year of U. A. he had come to a park as well, but with Momo. He had long since broken up with Izuku, since Izuku wanted to focus more on getting stronger and controlling his quirk. Shouto recalled he had begun dating Momo soon afterward, since Momo quickly confessed (rather awkwardly) when she had the chance. When _they_ were at the park, they made a cute little snowmen utilizing their quirks. Momo had made the non-snow pieces and Shouto easily molded the snowy body. It was quite nice, especially since he remembers Momo insisted they play house despite being 17. Shouto had a great big laugh out of that memory. However, his giggles soon faded away into a big sigh. Shouto's breath made a swirly shape in the air— like a heart, but collapsed.

"Eijirou! We are _not_ having a snowball fight. We're adults for fuck's sake. Snowball fights are for kids!" Shouto suddenly hears a voice yell from a far end of the field. He recognizes it— the voice most definitely belongs to Bakugou. Soon, he and Kirishima come into view.

"Come off it, Bakugou! Snowball fights can be for grown men too! Stop being such a grumpy dork and start throwing snowballs!" Kirishima argued. Shouto stifles a laugh. He feels bad for overhearing their conversation. _They're most likely here on a date, I'm probably intruding,_ Shouto realizes. A weird bittersweet feeling in his heart grows, so he shakes his head and slaps his cheeks. Shouto wants to move, but his boots are frozen in the ground.

"Eijirou, I'm not taking part in your stupid sno—"

"TAKE THIS!"

"Ahhh! Dumbass!"

"Ahahaha!"

Kirishima had smashed a snowball right into Bakugou's face. This riled Bakugou up enough to finally join in. Shouto begins to feel extremely melancholy as he watches the couple throw snowballs and tackle each other and roll around in the snow and laugh. Hell, he even starts to miss Izuku and Momo while watching the two. Shouto steps back a little, falls into the bench, and looks at his feet. He stay like that for a bit when suddenly he feels the bench creak. Someone had sat next to him, but Shouto didn't bother to look up.

"Hey kid. Sure does suck to watch others enjoy themselves, huh?" the person says. Shouto would recognize that raspy voice anywhere. It was none other than Tomura Shigaraki. However, he refuses to look up at him. Even though Tomura is a changed man and his villain days were far behind, it still felt weird. Shouto just nods his head in response.

"Now you finally understand how I felt, to an extent. But let me tell you kid— it gets better. Don't fret. You'll be like those two dorks again sometime," Tomura continues. Shouto breathes heavily in response. Tomura laughs.

"Not much of a talker, huh? Well, I'll leave you be. Just remember my words, okay?" Tomura says as he gets up from the bench and walks out of the field. Shouto notices that Bakugou and Kirishima had left as well. Once again, it's him all alone. However, this time, Shouto feels fine with the solitude. He plops into the snow and sighs into it. The solitude is only for now.


End file.
